PRESIDENT’S REPORT HEALING THE BORDER SITUATION THROUGH PRO BONO SERVICE

Malcolm A. Heinicke

he recent images from our southern border are shocking – our own government separating parents from their infants and small children simply for seeking T to enter the country. These are hardly family values, and especially for us parents, it’s almost too difficult to imagine this happening to us. The uncertainty would be agonizing: is my child being treated like a criminal or being abused, will I ever see my child again, and if I do, what will be the long-term effect of this jolting separation and actual incarceration?

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The Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF) responded staff committed to protecting immigrant rights, and your by condemning this practice, and the Justice & Diversity support of JDC makes this possible. Center's (JDC) Immigrant Legal Defense Program has long been fighting for due process rights and access to justice for But I want to be clear that those of you who do not immigrants throughout Northern . practice immigration law can play a role too. As JDC Director Gloria Chun and I go around the city promoting In addition, JDC provides technical expertise and capacity JDC’s pro bono services, lawyers frequently comment on building, data collection and analysis, as well as advocacy. the tragic situation at the border and ask how they can JDC does this work as a proud partner with the organizations channel their anger into action. Of course, a few among that make up the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense us went to the border and provided direct assistance, but Collaborative, the Northern California Collaborative for you need not do this to make a true difference here. Just Immigrant Justice, and the Northern California Rapid as affected parents and children will need help healing the Response & Immigrant Defense Network. Currently, separation scars suffered by this terrible policy, help is also JDC has a team of eight attorneys and coordinators on needed to repair the trust of our immigrant communities and, really, our national standing.

Impression from San Francisco's Families Belong Together rally on June 23, opposing the separation of children from their parents and guardians along the U.S. border with .

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removal proceedings before the San Francisco Immigration Court. In addition, there are opportunities for volunteer interpreters fluent in Spanish and English. A volunteer The scars that have been shift involves spending approximately two to three hours at the San Francisco Immigration Court to interpret during created are deep, but every AOD’s free consultations with unrepresented respondents. time a volunteer lawyer To learn more, please contact [email protected].

provides an immigrant In addition, we have coordinated with several partner with representation and the organizations to build pathways for pro bono opportunities for lawyers with no immigration experience: associated chance at justice, it helps the healing process. Kids in Need of Legal Defense (KIND) Through KIND, volunteers provide legal counsel to unaccompanied refugee and immigrant children in the United States. KIND protects unaccompanied children who enter the US immigration system alone and strives to ensure that no such child appears in immigration court without As I wrote in my last column, JDC has ready-made representation. Immigration experience is not required, and volunteer opportunities to assist in preventing evictions, training will be provided. Imagine the healing that winning combating domestic violence, and stopping unfair debt just one child asylum case would bring. If this interests you, collection practices. And, in taking on these efforts, our please contact Katie Annand at [email protected]. volunteers very frequently serve immigrant communities. Make no mistake, the scars that have been created are deep, Legal Services for Children (LSC) but every time a volunteer lawyer provides an immigrant LSC has been serving unaccompanied children detained in with representation and the associated chance at justice, it custody in Northern California for many years. Attorneys helps the healing process. It helps rebuild trust in the legal interested in taking on pro bono cases to help detained system. And just as important, it reminds people of the true children are asked to fill out an application (available at values of this country and sends the message that we care www.lsc-sf.org/get-involved/pro-bono-panel) and will then about immigrants. receive case summary emails immediately. Once again, attorneys of all backgrounds are needed. No immigration Your bar association is not stopping there. For those experience is required, and LSC will provide training. members who want to volunteer to handle immigration Contact Andrea Del Pan at [email protected]. matters specifically, we will facilitate that too. Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) Attorney of the Day Program (AOD) Since 1983, LCCR’s Asylum Program has provided legal For lawyers with immigration law experience, we have the representation for refugees who have escaped persecution and AOD program at the San Francisco Immigration Court. torture in their native countries. LCCR offers workshops, Through this program, volunteer lawyers provide counseling trainings, and other support to guide and inform each pro and same-day representation to individuals in non-detained bono attorney who does asylum work to ensure they are fully

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equipped to meet the needs of the client. Further, each pro and his community members embraced him, and he went bono attorney is paired with an immigration practitioner on to an amazing career as a child psychologist and pioneer who mentors the pro bono attorney throughout the asylum in the mother-infant attachment field. If he were still alive, I process. Through these support structures, attorneys who am certain that he would be mortified, not only as a citizen have had little or no immigration law experience are able but also as a scientist, about what happened at the border to successfully take an asylum case from beginning to end. recently. But then, as a practitioner, he would tell us it is Contact: Elisa Piana at [email protected]. time to heal.

More generally, we will work to facilitate a workshop for As lawyers, we too should have our own professional our members where you can hear from these and other legal outrage, and I hope the ideas above will help some of services providers to determine which opportunity would you channel your personal anger into professional healing be best for you. Please visit our resource page at www.sfbar. because respect for the law and one another is surely the best org/immigration/resources.aspx, which we update as new prescription here. volunteer opportunities become available. I remain very proud to be a San Francisco lawyer. Please allow me to close on a personal note and explain why this issue is particularly meaningful to me. As I noted in Malcolm A. Heinicke is the 2018 president of the Bar Association my installation speech, I am a first generation American. of San Francisco. A partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson, his practice My father emigrated as a ten-year-old boy (not an infant), focuses on employment and complex commercial litigation, but the thought of him being separated from his mother particularly in class and collective actions and employee mobility immediately following their already harrowing escape from matters. is hard to imagine. Once he was here, this country

IN THE NEWSROOM Statements released by the Justice & Diversity Center and partner collaboratives in 2018:

Immigration Advocates Exploring Further Legal Action Against ICE’s Abrupt Transfers of 8/30 Detained Immigrants

Justice & Diversity Center Joins Bay Area Professional, Religious and Community 7/26 Organizations To Demand Trump Administration Reunite Families and Respect the Rule of Law

Separation of Families at The Border Lacks Legal and Moral Justification 6/15

Rapid Response Networks Denounce Due Process Violations by ICE in Northern 3/5 California

WWW.SFBAR.ORG/NEWSROOM

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